Stairwell to survival

Preservationists say saved WTC staircase is worth $2M to protect

by amy zimmer / metro new york

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MAR 10, 2008

LOWER MANHATTAN. It took months of prep work — and years of debate — to begin yesterday’s roughly 200-foot move of the “Survivors’ Staircase” into temporary storage to make way for one of Larry Silverstein’s new office towers.

The 37-step structure, which served as an escape route for thousands in the twin towers, is the last remaining above-ground artifact from the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The staircase will be transferred again this summer to the location of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which will rise around the 65-ton stairway.

The move will cost roughly $2 million.

Museum president Joe Daniels called it a “treasured artifact” that symbolizes the story of 25,000 survivors.

“It’s a complex operation,” he said. “It required hundreds of man hours, but it was so important to do. It’s a symbol of 9/11 that doesn’t get told enough.”

When the Pataki Administration proposed in 2006 salvaging a couple of individual stairs, it prompted outcry from survivors and preservationists. The Spitzer administration took a different approach. Last August, Avi Schick, Chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, proposed preserving the whole staircase for the museum being built on the Port Authority-owned site.

“Other things are about death and destruction,” Schick said. “This is about life and renewal.”

Richard Zimbler, president of the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network, explained, “The image of stairs and stairways is so much of what the 9/11 experience was.”